Someone Breaks Quarantine To Give Us A Review Of 28 WEEKS LATER!!

Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here.
I liked Juan Carlos Fresnadillo’s first film, INTACTO. I didn’t love it, but I thought it was muscular filmmaking, and I was intrigued when they hired him to direct the follow-up to Danny Boyle’s not-a-zombie movie.
Did he pull it off? Has he maybe even topped the original? That’s what I’ve been hearing, and today’s reviewer had a chance to check it out already:

I don’t know about you, but on paper I wasn’t entirely sold on 28 Weeks Later, an entirely new cast, a couple of kids among the leads and what sounded like a horribly laboured allegory for US/British involvement in Iraq. Now I loved the opening of the first one, but thought it took a distinct turn for the worse the moment they reached Christopher Eccleston and his not-so-merry men.
So, it’s a pleasure to report that 28 Weeks Later is, in most respects, far superior to the first film – it’s a nasty, unpleasant, edge-of-the-seat ride that pretty much takes the premise of the first movie, adds a bucket load of cash and turns it into a top-notch horror/action movie. In short it’s pretty much the leap that Alien made to Aliens or Blade did to Blade II – which probably means we’re due a ropey third instalment around 2009.
28 Weeks Later opens in a farmhouse where a small band of survivors are holed up during the initial outbreak. It starts so deliberately quietly and slowly (with a lovely candlelit scene between Robert Carlyle and screen wife Catherine McCormack) that you might wonder whether you’ve accidentally wandered into a different movie entirely. Needless to say, it soon goes horribly, horribly wrong and the infected arrive and proceed to wreak merry havoc. Now I thought they were pretty unpleasant in the first film but the way they’re portrayed in this one is just downright nasty – no comic relief, no jokes, just an awful lot of puking blood, snarling and biting.
Carlyle escapes but not before doing something pretty downright awful that manages to be simultaneously sort-of-understandable and downright spineless. The rest of the film plays out six months later, when he’s reunited with his kids who escaped the outbreak because they were overseas on a school trip.
Anyway, the US army is overseeing the return of around 15,000 Britons to a quarantined area called the green zone. They’re settled in Canary Wharf (a huge office complex for anyone not familiar with that end of London) and, amid the expected scenes of desolate emptiness (arguably even more impressive this time round and presumably the result of a fair bit of digital car and people removal), we slowly get to meet a few of the American soldiers – although it’s probably the film’s biggest flaw that they don’t really register as characters in their own right.
Now there’s no point in giving any more of the plot away because, as you’d expect, everything goes horribly, horribly wrong. Juan Carlos Fresnadillo takes Danny Boyle’s visual style from the first movie and runs with it – crafting a great series of action set pieces. There’d napalm, chemical weapons and snipers while the Isle of Dogs gets comprehensively trashed as the body count runs into the thousands.
There’s a chase through Parliament Square that ends up in Charing Cross station (as a Londoner, one of the real joys of this film is that it gets all the geography absolutely spot on – there’s no thinking oh, hang on, that isn’t there) and then down into the Underground where, in a sequence that suggests more than a passing acquaintance with The Descent, our ever-dwindling band of survivors head down into pitch black darkness. Oh, and the station’s full of decaying corpses, rats and zombies.
What’s great, is that every so often you latch onto a character – think ‘oh, that’s obviously the hero’ or ‘well, she’s the heroine’ only to watch them get torn to bits ten minutes later. There’s nothing predictable about who survives and who doesn’t (with one very obvious exception) and the film cleverly wrong-foots you on exactly who’ll be dismembered/eaten/puking blood next. In fact, it’s so effective that even innocuous scenes had me wincing, simply because I was expecting something absolutely awful to happen and there’s no doubt that Fresnadillo enjoys toying with his audience in this way.
It’s not all great though – a scene involving a helicopter blade and a bunch of zombies in an overgrown Hyde Park didn’t work for me – mainly thanks to the CGI helicopter – but if you want gore with your zombie movie then this is the scene that gives it to you in spades. Some of the characters are a bit on the thin side – Harold Perrineau is rather wasted and the teenage angst between Robert Carlyle and his kids, while an attempt to ground the film in realistic human emotions, doesn’t entirely come off.
Finally, I must admit I was pleasantly surprised not to have been hit over the head with an elaborate metaphor for US involvement in the Middle East (surely the cinematic cliché for 2007), although a scene where the soldiers, unable to distinguish between refugee and zombie, are ordered to fire on the civilian population, will inevitably cause highbrow critics to ponder whether the film is a damning indictment of the Iraq situation. For my money it’s all a bit like 300 – you can read whatever you like into it, although Fresnadillo has certainly cribbed bits from television newscasts of troops in Bagdad and Basra . In fact, the entire film seems predicated on the premise that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Basically, everything that does go wrong happens because someone ignores the (eminently sensible) rules, tries to save someone, or thinks they know better.
So there you have it – 28 Weeks Later, a cracking action/horror film and hopefully the first of many decent summer movies. Hell, it even makes you think a bit. But not too much…

Wasn't a great film, but it looked amazing. Hopefully, he kept the same cinematographer. Not really buying the casting of Robert Carlyle, though. To go from Cillian Murphy to him is a bit like the Hulk going from Eric Bana to the lunkheaded brother from Prison Break. Ok, maybe not that bad. But you get the idea.

I thought 28 Days Later was a good idea... but bad film, ruined by a self indulgent director more interested in stylized shots than logic and common sense. I'm looking forward to 28 Weeks Later. I think it's a great concept and hopefuly it will be done right this time.

I liked "28 Days Later" up until the very end- where *SPOILER ALERT* all 3 main characters survive and live happily ever after in a nice little cottage in the country. BOO! The director should've had some BALLS and used the original ending (which is viewable on the DVD) where the guy dies and the two girls are left to fend for themselves. It was harsh, realistic and very satisfying. If only that ending was tacked onto the actual film, I'd say "28 Days Later" was probably the best zombie movie of all time. I'll give this new "28" a spin, but I'm not expecting anything great.

that ending is always tacked onto the very end when the film is televised, at least here in britain. even though its an alternate ending, tacking it on like they do makes it seem more like the REAL ending, with the happy ever after ending being the guys dying coma dream.

may be similar to the British TV ending mentioned above. In our theatrical release the story ended with the trio's survival however after the end credits the subtitle "But what if...?" appeared segueing into the more downbeat hospital scene where Jim died leaving the two girls alone. I am annoyed to this day that the Aus DVD retains the happy denouement while relegating the downer ending to the deleted scenes.

There was two refreshing things about 28 days later (A) it was a horror movie that had a male lead character as opposed to a run-of-the-mill female final-girl survivor and (B) HE DIDN'T FUCKING DIE AT THE END. And yet some people aren't happy because he didn't. Probably because he didn't die some sacrificial death for the sake of some woman who started out willing to leave him to be torn to pieces. Hint, it was his fucking story and the ending to it was fucking brilliant.

GRINDHOUSE didn't do this concept first...that honor belongs to Max Brooks's novel WORLD WAR Z, at the Battle of Yonkers. Though both were clearly developed independently of one another, so we'll cut Rodriguez some slack, there. How 28 WEEKS handles it, however, remains to be seen.

I read in a recent interview with Boyle on the BBC website that the original script Alex Garland wrote had a finale where the three survivors left Heathrow in a passenger jet with the infected/zombies hanging off the plane getting sucked into the engines. They made the movie they could make and the three survived. It's great to see deleted scenes and alternate endings on DVDs, but if you listen to Boyle's commentary it's pretty clear why they weren't used.

All of you panty-waists who think it sucked once the soldiers showed up don't understand the movie. It wasn't just some zombie horror Dark Castle crap.<p>
It was a movie about the nature of violence and the human animal.<p>
Geez louise. For a site with political commentary all over the place and talkbackers who seem to find some anti-American message in every scene of every flick ever made and are just convinced that they KNOW film you're all a bunch of twits.<p>
Look a little deeper. You might enjoy it more.<p>

personally i think the very reason it sucked is exactly what you say. that is hardly deep or new ground to cover and they didnt do it in a different way at all. up to then it had been a pretty original movie and that is where it turns into a giant, obvious cliche. thats why it takes a turn for the worse.

A very dull Romero rip-off lauded because they cleared out Londons streets for a few hours. Just because it wasn't glossy like the similar scene in Vanilla Sky we're supposed to wank explode....No..sorry..

as it was the first interesting and entertaining zombie movie I've seen in at least a decade. The first one cool enough to buy and watch repeatedly. Basically, if you look at all those other predictable clones of zombie movies out there, and think 28 Days Later was the one that was shit, your opinion means shit on the subject. Because saying that is basically like saying Fight Club was stupid, no where near as good as Con Air or White Chicks.

They shot it at 4am in the middle of summer then digitally altered Big Ben to another time rather than having to digitally remove people/cars. They only had to close the road off for something like 10 minutes.

If you didn't like it because it was a morality play about the positive use of horrific interpersonal violence then that's one thing, but you're one of the few. Most of these enlightened lefties on this site and in these talkbacks say they hated it because "I hate stupid soldiers and it wasn't no flippin' zombie movie no more jest a stupid soldier movie and who cares about dem soliers."<p>
They hate it because the driver of the narrative turns from "real cool zombies" to "stupid soldiers," thus proving they are idiots and didn't get the movie at all.<p>
Tools.<p>

I'd compare 28 Days Later to Alien.
They're both fantastic. The former just has less of a mass market appeal and didn't draw the cross-over audience that Alien did.<p>
But both, in their own way, are genius. Yes. I said it. Genius.

You wrote: "In short it’s pretty much the leap that Alien made to Aliens or Blade did to Blade II"
Blade II sucked ass and it only ruined status that the original Blade was enjoying. The third movie isn't even worth mentioning..now I must vomit a little bit for even thinking about it....
So if this movie follows in that tradition as you've so stated,...I'll be happy to miss this one.

1) Robert Carlyle could out-act Cilian (thin gothy twat) Murphy any day of the week.
2) 28 Days Later was fantastic.
3) It did not have a 'tame' zombie in it a la Day/Land of the Dead. One of the soldiers was infected and they tied him up out back before he turned. He wasn't trained, as evidenced by him eating the other squaddies who fucked with him.
4) Blade 2 ruled, and was superior to the great original in every way.
5) Romero didn't start the zombie genre, he just popularised it, zombies existed before his films. Thus Romero is a some-other-guy-ripoff.